WASTING WASTE: MONGOLIA SLOWLY LEARNS TO LOVE RECYCLING.

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 ULAANBAATAR 000603 SIPDIS SENSITIVE SIPDIS STATE FOR EAP/CM; OES/ENV-H. FINMAN EPA - INTERNATIONAL FOR M. ENGLE, M. BAILEY STATE PASS TO AID/ANE FOR D. WINSTON E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: EAID ECON SENV PGOV SOCI BTIO MG SUBJECT: WASTING WASTE: MONGOLIA SLOWLY LEARNS TO LOVE RECYCLING. Ref: A) Ulaanbaatar 599, B) 06 Ulaanbaatar 621, C) Ulaanbaatar 624, SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED - NOT FOR INTERNET DISTRIBUTION. 1.(SBU) SUMMARY: Despite Mongolians' embrace of nature and the environment as central to their culture, the vast majority of Mongolia's urban dwellers are still unaware of recycling options even as urban areas sink under a growing waste disposal crisis and trash can even be found in a few heretofore pristine steppe areas. While some Mongolians might have a vague understanding of the benefits from recycling, very few understand the mechanics, and even fewer actively participate. Acting almost as a de facto welfare program, recycling is left to the urban poor waste pickers who rummage through city trash sites looking for recyclables to pass on to the handful of accepting companies. With the help of the Japanese aid agency JICA, the Government of Mongolia (GOM) has ramped up awareness campaigns and is taking baby steps to encourage increased recycling. As post notes in its comment, for truly effective results, however, the GOM must increase outreach and education efforts, work with local industries, institute recycling-friendly policies and begin to see recycling, with its potential for new industries and increased jobs, as a win-win environmentally, financially, and socially. In this regard, Mongolia may be a potentially fertile future -- repeat future -- market for U.S. environmental and recycling goods and services. (Ref A summarizes Mongolia's solid waste problem.) END SUMMARY Recycling Still a Mystery -------------- ¶2. (U) It is a sad irony that in Mongolia today there is little awareness of the benefits of recycling for the environment and the economy. Mongolians pride themselves on their closeness to nature and most families have relatives still engaged in herding or were only urbanized within the past three generations. Some of the loudest protests against development of the country's mining sector have centered on its environmentally destructive practices, tarring all mining operations with the excesses of a few unregulated artisanal or small scale mining projects (see refs B and C). So far, few have grasped the idea that protecting the environment �00A;begins at home. ¶3. (U) According to the Ulaanbaatar's (UB) City Maintenance and Public Utilities Agency, only about 3.7% of all waste currently produced by UB is recycled (as opposed to 32% of municipal waste in the U.S.). If it were not for the efforts of a few hundred urban poor waste-pickers who scour the city's Ulaanchuluut landfill, municipal trash containers and the dozen or so illegal dump sites throughout the city looking to earn bread money, the number would be closer to zero. ¶4. (U) For Mongolians, the mechanics of recycling remain a mystery; there is little knowledge of what items are recyclable, how they should be separated from non-recyclable trash and where they should be deposited. Part of the problem is that the concept of recycling is relatively new to them. Waste management issues fell off the radar during the economic hardships that befell the country during its transition to a market-based economy in the early 1990s. The government's attempts to create a fee based waste collection system fell into disarray. Recycling was the last thing on most people's minds. Recycling Left to Waste Pickers and Chinese Companies -------------- -------------- ¶5. (U) However, Ulaanbaatar's homeless street children, casualties of the country's economic transition, became the city's first recyclers when they started collecting plastic bottles from city dumps and gutters at the behest of Chinese buyers, who paid them pennies for their efforts. Scattered trash and street brawls over bottles and territory became increasingly common. ULAANBAATA 00000603 002 OF 003 ¶6. (U) Eventually Chinese buyers graduated to accepting plastic bags as well as some paper products. They set up small operations in Ulaanbaatar to melt down the plastics for export to China, where it was recycled and used in the manufacture of toys, plastic bags and bottles, house wares and other plastic-based products. Ironically, much of this recycled plastic was/is re-exported to Mongolia in finished form. ¶7. (U) The recycling scene today in Mongolia still very much resembles the drudgery of its mid-1990s origins, if only in a slightly evolved form. Urban poor waste pickers, both children and adults, now wander the city's landfill and dozen or so illegal dumps trolling for recyclables. The Ulaanbaatar city government estimates that some 50 families (up to 200 people) now make their living as waste pickers, scavenging for plastic, paper, glass and aluminum recyclables. Fistfights still erupt as families vie for pole position when waiting for the arrival of dump trucks to the landfill and children have even been known to jump into dump trucks to pluck out high value recyclables early before they arrive at the landfill. ¶8. (U) Waste pickers pass their daily hauls to the recyclable item collection kiosks or else to one or more of the 15 recycling companies in Mongolia. Most are fully or partially Chinese-owned or else use Chinese equipment that requires Chinese technicians to operate. The dirtier, hands-on work such as searching out, collecting and transporting materials, dealing with locals, and negotiating deals with suppliers is left to Mongolian employees. According to the Ministry of Environment, the recycling sector currently employs just 250 persons. Interestingly, two recycling firms appeared for post's annual Embassy vicinity Earth day clean-up. 9.(U) One such example is the large toilet paper producing company Tseverkhen. Chinese-owned and operated, the company employs 10 SIPDIS Chinese technicians to operate machines and 25 Mongolians to scour the city looking for paper waste. Because there is no formal collection system in place and almost zero awareness among the public on what can be recycled and how, the Mongolian workers must rummage for paper themselves or else strike deals with waste pickers or businesses to provide them with recyclable paper, usually for ridiculously low prices. Newspapers usually fetch 10 tugruk per kilo (about US$0.01 -- one cent),notebooks and regular white paper 30 tugruk per kilo (UR$0.03). When Tseverkhen employees approached waste pickers at Ulaanchuluut Landfill about collecting recyclables for them, they were refused and told that the money offered was not enough. ¶10. (U) San Orgui, a Mongolian owned plastic processing company which makes plastic chairs, benches and lids etc., later struck a deal with two families at Ulaanchuluut to collect plastic bags and any other plastic materials on their behalf. JICA Helps with Recycling Awareness Efforts -------------- ¶11. (U) In 2004, the Japanese aid agency JICA launched a major waste management upgrading project in Ulaanbaatar that included a sizable recycling component. JICA and city officials are aiming to increase the amount of annually recycled waste from 3.7% to 10% by ¶2010. This lofty goal is to be achieved through an education drive, the addition of special weekend recyclable collection routes for sanitation trucks in various city districts, and the installation of 134 privately operated recycling collection points. JICA also worked with waste pickers at the Ulaanchuluut landfill to aid them in removing recyclable from the daily build up of trash at the site. Unfortunately, JICA's plan to install a recycling plant at the site for use by waste pickers was never realized. It was later determined that the presence of waste pickers interfered with landfill attempts to compact and cover refuse in a timely manner. ¶12. (U) In 2005 the UB City Maintenance and Public Utilities Agency, working with JICA, launched a project to encourage people to recycle ULAANBAATA 00000603 003 OF 003 by exchanging such products as soap and plastic bags for recyclable plastic bottles and jars. Although implementers were forced to stop the project when it began losing money, the concept of recycling seemed to stick with those who had participated. ¶13. (U) Since then, the city has organized similar awareness campaigns to highlight the importance of recycling and proper waste disposal. Their message has focused on three primary ideas: 1) reduce the use of plastic bags, 2) discourage illegal dumping, and, 3) trash fee collection. Posters, key chains and other items highlighting the benefits of recycling are now ubiquitous in schools, on public transportation and other public areas. A month-long reality TV show was recently produced for UBS TV called "Let's Clean Up Garbage!" News reports and PSA have also appeared on other TV stations. GOM Needs to Shift to Action and Recycling-Friendly Policies -------------- ¶14. (SBU) COMMENT: While the GOM should be credited for finally moving to promote the concept of recycling to a wider audience, its timid forays into recycling awareness campaigns have so far produced limited results despite being backed by the Japanese, who are internationally recognized as master-recyclers. Awareness drives have focused more on the big picture (recycling is good) rather than on instructing residents on specific day-to-day procedures for recycling -- what products can be recycled and how to properly separate their waste. In addition, a confusing and haphazard recyclable collection system has stymied wider participation. ¶15. (SBU) If the GOM hopes to achieve greater success, they must ramp up education efforts, targeting not only schools and television with ads, but also billboards, radio and newspapers. Despite claims that there are over 130 recyclable collection points in the city, they remain mostly invisible. More clearly marked collection points, more recycle trash bins in restaurants, stores and other public places could also help increase awareness. ¶16. (SBU) But education efforts alone will not suffice. The GOM needs to actively engage industries and encourage the use of recycled materials, through tax or other incentives - carrots and sticks. Higher deposit refunds on bottles and cans could be introduced to support waste pickers and encourage recycling by others. Subsidies or low cost start up loans could be provided for companies to start up recycling businesses, or incorporate recycling into their current operations. ¶17. (SBU) Finally, thus far the GOM has regarded recycling as just one small aspect of its larger struggle to control a growing trash problem. However, there is no indication that the government sees the other environmental, financial, and social benefits that recycling brings to the table. Recycling could be a vehicle for new industries and the creation of jobs in an economy that suffers from 35% unemployment. Research shows that, per ton, sorting and processing recyclables alone sustains ten times more jobs than land-filling or incineration. Some recycling-based paper mills and recycled plastic product manufacturers, for example, employ 60 times more workers on a per-ton basis than do landfills. When viewed in these terms, recycling could become a more attractive alternative to simply sweeping its garbage into a landfill. That said, the recycling sector is largely empty and open for potential development by U.S. firms. END COMMENT. Goldbeck